Royal Warriors

Royal Warriors

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Probably the most disappointing thingand singling out one disappointment is difficultabout the recent James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies is that it goes to the trouble to include Hong Kong action star Michelle Yeoh (a.k.a. Michelle Khan), and then reduces her to the part of a slightly less weak-spirited Bond girl in constant need of rescue. Yeoh first caught the attention of most as the self-sufficient sidekick in Jackie Chan's Supercop, her first film after a premature retirement from moviemaking in the mid-1980s. Those who want to see her in action in a film that doesn't involve a condescending British superspy are better off turning to this 1986 police drama (alternate title: In The Line Of Duty). Yeoh plays a Hong Kong policewoman who teams up with a hardworking Japanese cop and an airport security officer to thwart a quartet of ruthless, ultra-loyal criminals. While nothing here really rises above the level of a particularly violent episode of T.J. Hooker, Royal Warriors is persistently entertaining, in part because of Yeoh, and in part because there are several classic instances of Hong Kong action films' no-limits style: The movie doesn't just kill off a perfectly likeable character; its villain then proceeds to dig up the body and use the threat of its desecration to lure Yeoh into a trap. That the film also includes a high-tech armored vehicle that seems to have been built around the frame of a Volkswagen Beetle pretty much ensures that Royal Warriors is going to be perfect entertainment for those in the mood for that sort of thing.